Suffragist vs Suffragette: What’s the Difference?
Words used for voting-rights campaigners carried arguments about tactics, respectability, and power. An insult reclaimed by activists could express the very defiance it was meant to dismiss.
Women worth knowing
All Stories
Extraordinary women, overlooked stories, and a more complete history. Explore the lives, ideas, and achievements that changed the world.
20th century women
Women who lived during the 20th century.
Gertrude B. Elion: Groundbreaking Chemist Who Helped Create the AIDS Drug
She helped change how medicines were developed, bringing a more targeted approach to drug research that produced treatments for serious diseases and earned major scientific recognition.
Nettie Stevens: A Discoverer of Sex Chromosomes
Her chromosome research helped explain how biological sex develops, advancing genetics while showing how easily a woman’s contribution could be overshadowed by male colleagues.
Fannie Lou Hamer, the Civil Rights Activist Who Fought for Black Political Power
After risking her home and enduring a brutal jail beating, Fannie Lou Hamer took Mississippi’s fight for Black political representation to the 1964 Democratic convention.
Women’s Suffrage and Prohibition: Strange Allies
Campaigns for women’s votes and alcohol prohibition once shared organizers and goals, building an unexpected alliance that helped advance demands for sweeping social reform.
The Surprising History Of The Birth Control Pill That Almost Wasn’t Invented
Determined activists and private funding helped turn the birth control pill from an uncertain research project into a development that transformed women’s reproductive choices.
The Inspiring History of Women in Firefighting in the US
Women fought fires long before they were widely welcomed into the profession, challenging exclusion as they moved from volunteer work into paid service and leadership.
3 Daring Female Astronauts That Beat The Odds
Women pushed beyond discrimination and skepticism to travel into space, expanding the possibilities for space exploration and the ambitions of those who followed them.
Top 5 Brilliant Patented Inventions by Women
Women’s inventions transformed household tasks, industrial materials, and medical research, solving practical problems while challenging a patent system that underestimated their ideas.
3 Great Female Speakers In History
Powerful speeches can rally support, challenge injustice, and change expectations. Women who commanded public attention offer practical lessons in making your own words count.
Julia Chase-Brand, Breaking Down Barriers for Women Athletes
She entered a distance race women were forbidden to run, challenging restrictions that kept female athletes off the starting line and out of serious competition.
Mary Treat, Victorian Entomologist and Visionary Biologist
Her meticulous observations earned the respect of leading scientists and challenged established ideas, demonstrating how much careful study of the natural world could uncover.
Ann Hopkins, Pioneering Law Firm Partner
Denied a partnership and told to become more feminine, she challenged workplace discrimination in a legal battle that helped expose the consequences of sex stereotyping.
Mary Bunting, Champion of Women’s Education
She challenged the limits placed on women’s education, building opportunities for students of different ages and changing expectations of who belonged at leading universities.
Bessie Coleman, Fearless Aviator Breaking Barriers
Denied flight training at home, she traveled abroad to earn her pilot’s license, then thrilled audiences with aerial stunts while challenging segregation on the ground.
Nancy Harkness Love, WWII Pilot & Commander
She recruited and led women pilots during wartime, demonstrating their ability to fly military aircraft and expanding the responsibilities they were allowed to take on.
Melanie Klein, the Founding Mother of Children’s Psychology
She took children’s inner lives seriously, developing theories that challenged her peers and helped reshape psychoanalysis despite her unconventional path into the profession.
Margaret Hamilton, the Woman Behind the Moon Landing
Her team’s software kept an overloaded spacecraft computer focused on landing, helping protect a historic mission and establish new standards for reliable software engineering.
Margaret Nash, courageous WWII POW navy nurse
She nursed fellow prisoners through disease and near-starvation in a wartime camp, then survived to continue caring for patients and teaching others to do the same.
Gertrude Bell, Al Khatun: Queen of the Desert
Her expertise in the region carried her from archaeology into wartime intelligence and state-building, where her political influence and museum work helped shape a country’s future.